A warlocks diary - "Do i suck?"

[Bengalosch]

Hi ppl,



because warlock seems to be the most gimped class in our bracket and because i like the uniqueness and the challenge, i created one.



here he is: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/aerie-peak/Quetztal/simple



Main Infos needed:



Quetztal has currently



77 Spellpower

+/- 700 hp

1400 Mana



this thread should keep you up with my gameplay-experience, some stat-checks and theorys about "the lost class". i appreciate any help or hints.



there we go:



oki, so i chose destro for leveling and dinged 20 about two hours ago. my first experiences:



- conflagrate is a nice idea - currently mine hits around 100-110. for pvp this needs to go up seriously in the next week.



- i love the system of soulshard-using: with soulburn, you can get a small but fast heal with drain life (which otherwise should be only usable as an affliction-wl as far as i can see. you can get a nice sequence of searing-pain crits (which hit currently for around 100 for me with 77 spellpower) but i really prefer the instant soulfire which critted for 400 and some already. this plus immo/conflagrate-combo can get you some nice burst, although the damage should at least go up by 50 % when i am geared out. hope that works.



- my imp "Belpep" is the only pet i am using currently - and just because of the +17 stamina-buff. maybe my voidwalker, the great "Heltast" (sounds like "Helltaste" a bit!), will come out, when i solo big pve-things.



- dots are (too?) weak - as a destro at least. but i am not yet experienced enough to make a valid statement here.



- i was surprised by the rain-of-fire-damage so far (atm: 75 per tick, per mob). this seems to be a strong spell - with little usage dmg-wise in pvp.



- i did two bgs in 10-14, just to get a first feeling and it sucked. but more because of the heirloom-p2ps, who noone stands a chance in this bracket. what i really enjoyed, was a 1on1-sequence with a dwarfen-resto-shammy. i chain-feared and dotted him up for quite a bit and managed to survive pretty long. first shine of hope comes around.



here is my first take: i have the feeling, that i lack some damage all over, although i want to wait a bit, until i have more sp. my first idea to fix the class was: reduce the cd of soulburn from 45 to like 10-15 seconds. if i could use that abbility more than once a fight, i cant imagine, that this is a weak class anymore. soulburn is like the signature-move of a warlock, so why shouldnt this get some love? could it be easier to fix something? but as i said, that is only my first take. more to come soon.



cant wait for your comments!

 

[ThaCarter]

You're more of a support role to be honest, sort of like a good ret paladin. In terms of true damage and burst rets can match up well with any other burst class, but because you have a lot of GCDs to go before you can use that burst you have the capability of offhealing. If you see a ret topping damage meters but not really healing, they aren't a good ret because their damage probably comes at the expense of their teammates deaths (of course if no one is dying because there 6 resto shamans in the bracket /wink). Similarly warlocks are not meant to top damage meters; rather, you spread damage across multiple targets so that the other teams healers fall behind. Imagine a scenario where you have 3 targets, Healer A, Damage A and Damage B (Each with 1000 HP). A bad warlock might do 600 damage to Damage A and maybe fear Healer A once or twice. By the end of that Damage A is at 400 health, and maybe your ret paladin teammate hits him for a 200 crusader strike. With 200 health left, and the healer healing, that DPS is still going to live. Meanwhile, imagine that you bring all those DPS'rs down to 600 while fearing the healer and the DPS that is free to come kill you. You're going to be at full health (instead of dying) and your ret teammate can now take turns pressuring each DPS while the healer has to keep up two targets instead of one. Moreover, add a HoJ and AT or maybe another fear in there and the chances of you winning out is pretty high.



Also soulburn won't change because at end game it's absolutely amazing. Having Soulburn on a lower CD would break locks even more then they are at higher levels.

 

[Starup]

im not so sure on counting on a lowered soul fire. Idk if its good at high lvls so if the dmg is already nice endgame, i doubt they would reduc the cd.

 

[C O T U S]

you have to have the BOA staff in order to be reasonably effective in BGs as any caster, including locks. you will get an enormous increase in spellpower just from that one item



try speccing affliction until you get the staff. it will make things a little easier for you

 

[Jeralulz]

As Destro - only use dots if there is someone who can actually stealth like rogue, druid or night elf otherwise forget it

. Voidwalker is crap if you wanna solo stuff your best friend is Fear + Corruption + Bane of Doom.

Leveling as destro is imo stupid lvling as Affli was pretty fast cuz i could just keep pulling and heal up with healthstone/drain life^^.



Rain of Fire damage is reduced by a huge amount if there are more then 6 people or so - only recommended in Arena if there is just one way to you and there is a rogue or so in there team and u can get him out of stealth through it or in bgs...

.



Soul Burn wont be buffed as a far as i know but Soul Fire scales 10,1 % better with Spell power - atleast Blizz says so in 4.3 Patch notes

.



Searing Pain is situational but nice to keep enemys in combat like warriors rogues etc and more a spell to use while ur on max range and spamable then or just while u feared to do some extra dmg...



But ya "Do you suck?" naa just the gear and it feels really sloppy until you get some BoAs

. Warlock is easier to handle then some people really think

. Ive even been told today id own it up xD

 

[Bengalosch]

o.k. 2 weeks later, almost fully geared now (no neclace, no hat yet and no sorcerer-cloak). my next goal is to get BOA-staff, i am at 460 honorpoints now.



here is my second take on this class:



- i was affliction - for about 25 mins. it sucks. here is why:



in my eyes, you gain nothing from affli. unstable affliction is not better than immolate, or even worse. it doesnt deal any extraordinairy damage, it doesnt have a front-up-burst and the non-dispell-effect is useless in our bracket. the 8% crit gain (talented) on your dooms is nice, and so is the 30% shadow-damage overall (42% on corruption talented). but there is almost no use for the sixth talent-point, all possibilities are near-crap. you lose a lot of burst (at the moment its around 200-400 from immolate+conflagrate-combo + 30-60 less from instant soul-fire), you lose the very handy cc from talented conflagrate, you have a longer-to-cast shadowbolt, although this should be one of your better assets with affliction, and i think the fire-dmg of your imp (which is your best dot anyway) also goes down a bit. you have nice ticks of "bane of doom", but you will see lots of them hit, when you are a ghost. i dont have the feeling, that running around and dotting everyone up is a very funny or effective BG-style. every heal-class laughs about your dots and just counter it easily with HoTs. and if you come into 1vs1-situations, you are pretty lost.especially against the shadow-resistant draenei. so is went back to destruction.



NOW THE (more or less) POSITIVE THINGS:



1. i really do well against hunters:



i love this combo: immolate, conflagrate, instant-soul-fire, fear, soulfire, corruption and bane of agony, conflagrate again, fear. i have the feeling, that whenever i meet a hunter in a bg, i have a real good chance of beating him. that alone is a lot of fun as a warlock. maybe i was running into to many noobs, but hunters are huntable as a warlock.



2. damage-meters are lying



you can easily be among the best on damage-meters as a lock. but: that can be had by dotting everyone up (including all pets) and contributing almost nothing to your teams-success. just throw bane of doom once your alive on anybody, thats an instant +1000 dmg for the statistics. but it doesnt make you any good. on the other hand, as i said, you can be among the best in dealing damage.



3. rain of fire



- farming is so easy with this spell. i would say warlocks are the masters of maxing skinning from 0-100.



4. needful things



- fear is great, but takes long to cast.

- instant soul-fire should be on cd all of the time, you can even cast it while running! (highest bg-crit so far: 512)

- fear is your friend!

- rain of fire is the best PVE-spell, but almost useless in BGs - but there is a tunnel in WSG, where you can make some surprising moves with it.

- fear, fear, fear - love using it in houses and sending a "full-4-sec-cast-soulfire + instant-soulfire-combo" at the running person. (this is good for 600-1000 instant-damage)



5. warlocks and selfheals



- healthstone is really crap.

- drain life is almost crap - but can save your ass in close-call-situations (imagine you vs. rogue, dots are ticking, both are around 100-200 health. your pet, your dots and the 20-40 dmg + health from drain life every second can make the difference here)

- i really hoped for the talented drain-life, when i was affliction for 25 mins, but please forget about that: my heal-ticks went up from 30 to 33. not great.

- soul-harvest is great. i use it all the time. its a 700 hp ooc-self-heal plus soul-shard refresher.





summary: it is still fun playing the warlock. but you have to push many buttons, even before you start goin to combat (demon-armour, soul-link, soul-harvest after every rezz). i would be more than happy, if they would give me a slight damage-increase in the next patch though. something like the 30% cataclysm instead of 25% was a good direction. please make it happen blizzard! playing the warlock feels a little like playing a hunter in vanilla, which i did from 2006-2008. it is competitive and you have to be concentrated all of the time. but when you are winning it feels very fulfilling! thats it for now. bye folks.

 

[KainUFC]

Meh I use Afflic and do fine. It comes down to playstyle. I think people who spec Destro are just trying to play like mages.

 

[Bengalosch]

Meh I use Afflic and do fine. It comes down to playstyle. I think people who spec Destro are just trying to play like mages.

maybe you are right. but a destro-wl will at least always play like a mage with several dots and a pet.



some questions to you as an affli: dont you miss that burst? and what do you like about affli? i would love to hear your oppinion.

 

[Mrcer]

Honestly, go troll.



Go Herb/Alch after u get all ur enchantments.



DoT spam and when u need to focus fire 1 person down, pop troll racial/lifeblood and burn them down. Aside from that, you really dont have a ton of burst.





But ur DoTs are way more powerful than a boomkins. Once you get better gear, there should be no reason why you aren't topping the dmg charts. With propper game play(DoT spamming and Peeling for healers) people should have a reason to....fear you.





See wat i did there?

 

[R Prime]

Keep at it man. Practice practice practice. It already sounds like you know what to do however. When the BOAs start rolling in you should see a significant change. Until then, as you stated before, you are playing a gimped class and you should expect a challenge (not an invite for other locks to say MY LOCK RULES YOU SUX). Travel in groups - premade if possible.



Rain of fire is great for getting stealthed peeps.



And - you can macro your buffs to one button to press after rezzing.

 

[Tooh87]

people should have a reason to....fear you.





See wat i did there?

Nope, I missed it. Could you go over it again, but slower this time?



Thanks qt.

 

[KainUFC]

As afflic I tab dot UA>consecrate> bane of doom. If its a big group fight skip UA until you land on a burst target. Burst targets for me are healers, hunters, and sometimes rogues or ferals who are killing my healers.



For burst targets just make sure UA is up, cast shadowbolts or soulburn soulfire, fear heals.



From there I fear anybody that comes at me. Make sure to put consecrate on unstealthed rogues and fdruids, and put Curse of weakness on them, and any rets or warriors.



I use my soulburn on health stones any time its up and im getting focused.



My playstyle is very hit and run basically trying to top damage meters. Relatively few classes have tools to deal with dots or fears at this level. Also like you said we deal pretty well with hunters unless the hunter really gets the drop on us or is BiS.

 

[Bengalosch]

Honestly, go troll.



Go Herb/Alch after u get all ur enchantments.



DoT spam and when u need to focus fire 1 person down, pop troll racial/lifeblood and burn them down. Aside from that, you really dont have a ton of burst.





But ur DoTs are way more powerful than a boomkins. Once you get better gear, there should be no reason why you aren't topping the dmg charts. With propper game play(DoT spamming and Peeling for healers) people should have a reason to....fear you.





See wat i did there?

hi, thx for you reply. thats some valid information right there! i will go herb, not sure about second prof - thought about keeping enchanting for mana-oil. but as long, as i dont have lfh i will have to be an engineer.



and i will not reroll a troll. i really want to play an UD for style-reasons.

As afflic I tab dot UA>consecrate> bane of doom. If its a big group fight skip UA until you land on a burst target. Burst targets for me are healers, hunters, and sometimes rogues or ferals who are killing my healers.



For burst targets just make sure UA is up, cast shadowbolts or soulburn soulfire, fear heals.



From there I fear anybody that comes at me. Make sure to put consecrate on unstealthed rogues and fdruids, and put Curse of weakness on them, and any rets or warriors.



I use my soulburn on health stones any time its up and im getting focused.

kk, i will give afflictioon another chance and try that one day. just dont feel like it atm.

And - you can macro your buffs to one button to press after rezzing.

thats avalid hint as well, thx!!!

 

[Revpreyer]

I play as an afflic F2P and it is just super fun.



On a 1 vs 1, against other properly equipped (BoAs) F2Ps I seldom lose. Properly timed a combo of BoD, Soul Fire, and Soul Burn+Soul Fire allows me to land 750HP *uncrit* in less than 1 second. This is some pretty serious burst damage. Furthermore with afflic 8% crit bonus for banes and my base crit of 17%, it is unusual not to land 1000HP in a short burst. This strategy does require surviving 15 seconds for BoD to tick, and that's where our Fear comes in ;-)



On WSG, I mainly play the role of support. Locks are incredibly squishy up against more than 1 players (especially malees). However locks can easily change the game (as much as a heal) by sticking close to the FC, and fearing away all attackers on the FC for dispatch by other teammates (or just left behind). A good Pally/Hunter/Warrior FC + a heal + lock makes an incredible team, easily defending the FC against massed attacks especially for a drawn out FC/EFC standoff situation and easily escorting the FC to base. Another major value of locks in WSG is to intercept EFC. You should be able to easily land DoTs (BoD + Corruption) and fear the EFC for a few seconds of delay until teammates come over. If the EFC is not guarded by a healer (or self-healing) the BoD usually would finish them off (my BoD on average do 1500HP in 4 15-sec ticks) before they can get back to FR.



Anyway have fun playing with your lock. It is a shame that there are so few locks in the F2P bracket. It is a seriously fun class to play, and it is totally OP on a 1 vs 1 situation.



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http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/caelestrasz/Revpreyer/advanced